Vendetta in Death (In Death 49)

Sobbing, Marcella ran out of range.

“How?”

“I’m sorry, I’m not able to give you that information at this time. Your name, please.”

“Bondita Rothchild”

“Ms. Rothchild, it would be best if you bring your daughter back to New York as soon as possible.”

“You said Thad was killed. You didn’t say he died, but was killed. Was it an accident? Surely you can say that much.”

Steadier by a mile than her daughter, Eve thought. “No, it wasn’t an accident. I’m Homicide.”

“Oh dear God.” She looked away as raised voices, sobs rolled toward the room. “Yes, we’ll come back right away. I need to go, to calm her down.”

“Contact me, Lieutenant Eve Dallas out of Cop Central, when you’ve made the arrangements to travel back to New York.”

“Yes, yes. I have to go. Marci—”

She clicked off.

Replacing the ’link, Eve spent some time going through the closets, spent more of it opening the jewelry safes in each. Good practice, she decided, even if neither had been particularly complex safes, and when both turned out to be exactly what they were.

Safe holds for jewelry, wrist units, a little spare cash.

She made her way down to the home office, where Roarke sat at a muscular workstation.

No female touches here, she thought. Another bar—a small one—a too-small-for-a-nap sofa in port-wine leather. A muscular data and communication center to go with the muscular desk.

Wall screen, a couple of chairs, framed degrees and awards rather than art on the walls.

“I’ve something for you,” Roarke began.

“Secrets?”

“One I’m going to assume is so. He has semi-regular transactions with a company called Discretion. That’s a licensed companion broker. Every month or two, he places an order, makes the payment. It may be the woman he lives with is aware, of course, but given the circumstances it’s doubtful. More,” he continued before Eve could speak, “he ordered an LC for last evening, made the payment. It shows a refund, less cancellation fee. He made the payment two days ago, canceled it yesterday afternoon.”

“Canceled it?”

“You’ll want EDD to have a good look, a more thorough one, but I’d say, on a quick dive through? His account was hacked.”

“Now that makes sense. Makes sense,” she mumbled again as she wandered the room, as she put it into her head. “She knows, if she’s hacked his system, Horowitz is leaving town, and he has a paid side piece coming in. She waits, cancels it, and she comes instead. Why wouldn’t he open the door when he’s expecting a woman? When he’s got the wine, the bed, the evening mapped out?”

She spun around. “Can you pin the hacker’s location?”

“Possibly. That would be the location where the hack was done, and would take a bit of work. Someone this good? Well, if it were me, I’d use an unregistered portable and hack it from a remote location. Still worth the look.”

“Yeah, yeah, we’ll look.”

“There’s a bit more, not a secret, but a bit of a surprise.” He waited until he had her full attention. “The fifteen million and change from a couple years ago? He got that from me.”

She stopped dead, stared at him. “What? Why didn’t you say you knew him?”

“Because I don’t—didn’t.” With a s

hrug, he rose. “I acquired, as I do, a small company a couple years ago. More absorbed it, and it was done through lawyers and brokers. It didn’t ring with me until I dug into his files. Data Point, it was. A private concern that manufactures droids and other complex electronics.”

Irritation flickered over his face—the sort she recognized came from him not being a hundred percent on every detail.